WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
Just a fairly short Winding Down this week. I normally do most of the research work for the newsletter on a Saturday, but this Saturday I spent several hours sitting in a traffic jam. Traffic is always bad in London, but for the last year it's been a total nightmare as the city tries to make sure everything is ready for the Olympics.
However, I did manage to come up with one or two bits and pieces, and, if you like the sort of artwork that graces modern computer games, then I'd really recommend you have a look at the first item in the Scanner section - Feng Zhu design
Next week is a holiday here in the UK, and I'm going to be spending it moving my Federation 2 game from a 'real' 32-bit server to a 64-bit server in the cloud. Thus there will be no Winding Down next week. However, I will be back the following week to grace your screen with more news.
Shorts:
One of the obvious lead stories for this week is Space X's successful launch and link up with the International Space Station. However, I can't imagine anyone who reads this having missed out on all the coverage of the first commercial rocket to visit the International Space Station, so instead I'm going to treat you to a couple of other neat things happening in space. In the mean time, congratulations to Space X on its achievements, both technical and in overcoming the NASA bureaucracy!
First off, take a look at these stunning pictures of Earth beamed back by Russia's ELECTRO-L satellite, taken with its 121 megapixel sensor at half hour intervals. Second is a set of slides published by Scientific American, taken by readers during the recent annular eclipse of the sun. This was the first one to be visible in the US since 1994, and it looks as though everyone was out with their cameras. A couple of the pictures are somewhat make weight, but others are very cool.
And looking forward to the future, 'The Register' has an interesting piece on a new NASA project to build an adaptive telescope and bolt it onto the Space Station. It's called adaptive because each of its mirrors can be locally deformed to change its focus point. This allows the mirrors to be ground to less exacting standards, and takes account of the somewhat less than smooth motion of the Space Station. And as a C++ programmer, I note with a slight smirk that the control software is being written in C++...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/24/electro_l_121_megapixel_earth_photo/
http://eng.ntsomz.ru/electro/sq23052012
http://www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow.cfm?id=solar-eclipse-ring-of-fire
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/14/nasa_iss_telescope
The other obvious lead story, of course, is the botched Facebook IPO. I suspect that, like me, readers will have been following the saga with a kind of sick fascination. Quite apart from the tales of secret downgrading, it seems obvious to me that a lot of the initial purchases of shares were not by people who wanted to invest in the company, but who thought they saw a chance to make a quick buck on the first day.
Nothing wrong with that sort of gambling, of course, but it is a gamble, and you shouldn't complain when it turns out you guessed wrong and lost your stake. It's not as though there weren't plenty of pundits shaking their heads and saying that it was a massively overpriced IPO. I could go on at length, but instead I'm going to give you a few URLs which I think you may not have seen.
The first is a 'You Tube' video from Reuters telling the story, which gives you a feel for events. Then there are a couple of pieces from my old friend and financial pundit Clem Chambers, warning people not to buy shares, and advising you what to do if you did get burnt. Next is a useful piece from 'Business Insider', which explains why the lead underwriters cut their estimates, and why ordinary investors might have missed the information. Finally there is a tour-de-force analysis from MIT's 'Technology Review', analyzing why it believes Facebook will not only fail, but in doing so will destroy the business model (free to view, income from ads) on which the bulk of the World Wide Web depends - thereby ending the web as we know it. It's all pretty heady stuff!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzLIeduU3v0&feature=player_embedded
http://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2012/05/18/facebook-is-a-271-mango/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2012/05/25/five-calls-to-make-now-that-you-own-facebook-shares/
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-bankers-earnings-forecasts-2012-5
http://www.technologyreview.com/web/40437/
And while we are on the topic of predicting the future, take a look at this video of a film about what the future was thought to hold, made in 1920. I was particularly impressed by the idea that there might be planes that could fly from London to New York in less than a day...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=czr-98yo6RU
Homework:
This month marks an important birthday - the 120th birthday of the theory of the electron. It was in 1892 that Hendrik Lorentz published his seminal work on electron theory. In so doing he not only cleaned up James Clerk Maxwell's equations and reduced them to five equations that covered electricity and magnetism, he also laid the foundations of modern society. Happy Birthday...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=happy-birthday-electron&WT.mc_id=SA_CAT_physics_20120525
Geek Stuff:
Attention all budding geeks. Here is a little something for you to show off your skills - iron on skill badges! Roundels that tell the world of your achievements. I especially liked the 'Hello world', and the 'Ada Lovelace' ones, but I'm sure you will have your own favorites...
http://www.adafruit.com/category/70
Scanner: Other stories
Feng Zhu design
http://www.artbyfeng.com/
Why on Earth is Microsoft moving to Euro pricing now?
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2012/05/23/euro_pricing_policy/
Chrome spends a week at the top of the browser charts
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/22/chrome_most_popular/
Brussels wants e-identities for EU citizens
http://www.kurzweilai.net/brussels-wants-e-identities-for-eu-citizens
Google in the clear on Oracle patents
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/23/google_oracle_patent_decision/
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb, Fi, and to Slashdot's daily newsletter for drawing my attention to material used in this issue.
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Spamato spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
27 May 2712
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
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